


disturbed some rhythm, old and of vast importance

by friendly_ficus



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Post-Finale, Thacker and the Quell go on a long hike together, a little bit bittersweet, coming to terms with things, love is important but it's not a cure-all, residual psychic connection is absolutely present
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-11-26 08:41:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20927339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/friendly_ficus/pseuds/friendly_ficus
Summary: To be honest, Thacker doesn’t really think of the repercussions. He doesn't consider any dangers or weigh the pros and cons or consult with any outside sources. He writes a sign for the front door and gathers his gear and asks if she’s got a direction picked yet. She doesn’t, so he flips a nickel and they start walking west.(Or: Heading out with your friend, the embodiment of destruction.)





	disturbed some rhythm, old and of vast importance

To be honest, Thacker doesn’t really think of the repercussions. He doesn't consider any dangers or weigh the pros and cons or consult with any outside sources. He writes a sign for the front door and gathers his gear and asks if she’s got a direction picked yet. She doesn’t, so he flips a nickel and they start walking west.

On the first day, after the conversation, they don’t share more than ten words. He marks their progress on his map of the area, but they’ll soon reach the edge of his record. After that, who knows what they’ll find. He considers that for a while, the pleasant feeling of being in the wilderness with nothing but yourself and the wind and the trees. 

Mentally, he nudges the feeling over in her direction. The Quell stumbles over a root in the path, eyes wide with surprise. He reaches out and catches her elbow, hauling her up. 

When his hand grips her arm, he sees the wild face of her rage and grief, spitting, _ The time for peace is over. _

“Maybe so,” he says, “but look.”

In the trees above them, softly, birds are fluttering through the branches.

\---

The first night when they stop to sleep, Thacker ponders the stars above. They don’t give a lot of light, and if there’s a moon in the sky here he’s sure never seen it. A few feet away, the Quell unrolls her sleeping bag and lays down on top of it, stiff. In the back of his mind, quiet, he can feel her confusion.

As he falls asleep, he thinks of a lantern lit, a light on in the window of Amnesty Lodge. Maddie’s voice as he drags himself in from the forest, Barclay moving around in the kitchen to get some leftovers in the microwave. Homey feelings, for all that he’s never settled on a home.

_ It’s alright, _ he thinks. _ Look at the stars, look at the trees. It all worked out just fine. _

He’s too drowsy to notice, but the Quell raises a hand and starts tracing constellations against the sky, the motions slow and easy. Beat by beat, star by star, the stiffness leaves her body.

\---

The world changed while he slept, just a little. The leaves are a deeper green, the air a crisper breath. Underneath them, the grass seems more alive. If it keeps growing at this rate, it’ll be knee-high in a month or so. Thacker runs a hand through it, testing the strength of the roots. 

He opens his mouth to ask the question, and the Quell says, “It’s her return. Sylvain.”

“You think so?”

“She makes things better. She makes things _ alive.” _

_ I don’t, _the Quell doesn’t say, but Thacker hears it. 

“It’s nice,” he offers as he teaches her how to clear a campsite. “Today should be a good day for a wander.”

Just a little bit, like she isn’t sure how it’s done, the Quell smiles.

\---

They continue their meandering journey, Thacker picking out landmarks as they go. And he doesn’t worry about it being enough, about it changing her the right way or the wrong way, because he’s not there to change her. He’s just there to give her some company. 

Thacker knows the Quell better than any living being—maybe even better than Sylvain does, since he knows her in horror. In grief. He remembers what her rage felt like in his blood, boiling, screaming out. Quiet movement like this is pretty far from that. Sometimes they hear birds chirping, or see a lizard soaking up the sunlight on a rock. Sometimes there’s just the wind, or his breathing, and the rocks and trees and sky. The sun rises and sets and she starts pointing out constellations, one a night, and he writes them in a fresh section of his notes.

Sylvain doesn’t want to see her, he knows without asking. When he wants to start looking for a spot to spend the night, she starts considering where they’ve been before he mentions it. In some of his dreams, she sits on a log next to him in the Monongahela while the gnats flutter by.

Eventually they crest a hill and are confronted with an explosion of color, waving gently in the breeze.

“She was dead,” the Quell murmurs as they stare out at the field of orange flowers. “She’s alive now. It’s better this way.”

“Even if she doesn’t wanna see you, Slick?” 

“Yes.”

\---

Thacker makes a careful mark on his map, the bend in the river here, and the Quell wades in up to her knees. Little fish investigate her disruption, bobbing their faces out of the water to ask her questions. She shares some gorp with them and they puzzle over it, offering her a grub in return. She eats it.

“Sylvain was here,” one fish declares joyfully. “Look how clear the water is!”

“It’s very nice,” the Quell says gravely. “Did she leave you any pudding trees?”

“No! The teacher wouldn’t let her! She said we can’t have pudding! I think that’s wrong!” Other small voices pop up to join in the objection, overlapping and splashing water around.

“Yeah, let us have the pudding! Maybe we’d like it!”

“Yeah!” 

“Yeah, pudding!” 

“What’s pudding?” 

“I don’t know but it’s probably good!”

“If Sylvain made it it _ has _to be good, bubble-brain!”

“Don’t you call him bubble-brain, baitface!”

All day, the fish swim around the Quell’s knees and ask about pudding trees and orange flowers and what she and Thacker are doing here, exactly, but when the sun starts setting they order her firmly out of the water. 

“It’s dark,” one chirps, “and in the dark folks with feet step on us! Out, out, out!”

Thacker asks if they mind the two of them pulling up some riverbank to sleep on and they argue among themselves for a little while before deciding yes, that’s okay. 

But Fins, the self-proclaimed leader of this school, warns them that his ancestor was Jenny Scales, who stole a star from the sky and ate it, and he’ll get revenge on them that’s just as clever if they step in while the sun is down.

In the dark, the hushed bickering and noisy splashes abruptly stop when he says the name. The water shifts, faint reflections of starlight on the bodies of the fish. It’s all anticipation, all at once.

“Who’s Jenny Scales?” Thacker asks, because he’s a good sport.

Can a fish sigh? Apparently yes, since Fins’ exhale whistles in the night air. There’s a murmur of excitement from the other fish.

He starts the story like he’s told it a hundred times.

“When the world was young and all the rivers were connected, Jenny Scales saw a star on the horizon and thought it would be a good present—”

“A _ fine _ present,” another fish interrupts, “It’s a _ fine _present—”

She’s cut off by a tail smacking hard against the surface of the water, and a bunch of other fish making a very wet _ shh _sound.

“Who here is telling the story! She saw a star on the horizon and thought it would be a _ fine _present for King Salamander...”

In the dark, Fins tells them the story and the water makes soft sounds. In the morning when Thacker wakes up, the school of fish has moved on. 

“They all told me to say goodbye,” the Quell says.

Thacker nods, picking up the memory of Fins’ voice, _ tell your friend goodbye! _

While they wade across the river, some water splashes him from behind. When he turns, the Quell is looking very hard in the other direction. He grins.

\---

There’s a knocking in Thacker’s head, someone reaching out to him. “Ah, sorry,” he tells the Quell when she twitches. “I’m getting a call.”

“I will go and look at that rock,” she tells him. “I want to see if the lizards are there. I’m giving you privacy for your conversation.”

“Thanks, Slick,” he says, and _ picks up. _

_You did _**_what,_** Aubrey squawks in his head. _You’re with who?_

He can feel her hands fluttering in surprise, can hear a thread of magic in her voice.

“I know, I know. But she’s... she’s my friend, kid. I wasn’t gonna send her off on her own if she wanted some company.” 

_ She took over your _ brain, _ dude. You’re just gonna hang out now? _

“Yeah, that’s what we’re doing. Hey, what are these trees, kid? What’s with the carrot tree? Y’know those are meant to grow in the ground.” 

_ Ah, uh you’re breaking up, man. Crackle crackle I’m going through a psychic tunnel. Gotta go! _

He catches up with the Quell. She’s standing very still, watching a shadow between two boulders. _ That’s a place where lizards might like to be, _ he’d told her a few days ago at a similar spot, _ since it’s out of the sunshine. _

“It was Aubrey,” he says quietly.

“She’s very angry with me,” the Quell replies, turning away from the large rocks. “I’m frightening.”

He nods and offers her some granola from the granola vine they’d found a day ago.

After two more hours, she says, “Sylvain is angry with me too.”

“I know.”

“I still love her.”

“Yeah,” he sighs. It’s a heavy thing, he figures, to be in love. “I know.”

\---

The Quell doesn’t understand dreams. Well, she knows what they _ are, _and she knows what nightmares are, but she doesn’t understand them. She doesn’t really understand sleeping at all.

“Dreams are, y’know, when you sleep and your mind works through the mess,” he says. 

She tilts her head. “I’ve never tried to sleep,” she offers. “It seems unpleasant.”

“Ah, well, I need it to live. And sometimes it helps me work things out.” 

He stays up the first night she tries sleeping—he acts like he’s not tired, but they both know he’s standing guard. It’s worth it, when his light doze is disturbed by the shift of her arm as she twitches. The Quell presses a hand to her mouth, silent as anything, and her shoulders shake.

Thacker dips into their connection, blurred as the distinction is sometimes between them and finds Sylvain’s face twisted in pain. She doesn’t look like Aubrey, not really; that she is a holy thing is unmistakable. 

_ How could you do this? _ the goddess asks, _ how could you hurt my people? _

“You were _ gone,” _the Quell croaks, “you were dead and you were gone and I am the ending. I am always the ending. It’s all I know how to do.” 

_ Go away, _ Sylvain orders, brimming with orange light, _ I can’t look at you. _

In the waking world, Thacker coughs loudly and the Quell’s eyes snap open.

“Sorry about that,” he says. “Something in my throat.”

“Dreaming is unpleasant,” the Quell mutters. “I will not try again tonight.”

“Alright,” he says. They sit shoulder to shoulder and wait for sunrise.

\---

The mice in the cheese bush offer to share some food, and they chatter about _ Sylvain-who-walks-again. _It’s a shorter title in Mouse, a series of two squeaks and a flick of the tail, but they humor Thacker and the Quell because they have the terrible misfortune of not having tails.

“She made us this bush,” Beth Paws says proudly. “Isn’t it so nice?”

“Very nice,” the Quell says. 

Thacker’s furiously sketching in his notebook, the shape of the leaves and the amount of cheese on the stalks. A cheese bush. A _ cheese bush? _

When it’s clear he won’t talk again, the Quell takes another bite of cheese. “I have never had this food before.”

_ “Never _had cheese? Not even, not even cheese muffins? Cheese sandwiches? That’s terrible!” 

Beth sends one of the littler mice scampering off, and he returns with a small plate. The muffins are _ tiny, _are made for mice, and something about the whole situation makes the Quell smile. The muffins are delicious.

“Thank you very much for the muffins,” she says as they begin packing up. 

The chef, Friar Hugo, puffs up with pride. “We’re so happy you liked them.”

A mile or so down the road, Thacker gives up and slaps a hand to his forehead. “A _ cheese bush?” _

The Quell throws her head back and laughs.

\---

They come to a funeral for some duck-folk and keep a respectful distance. The ducks here are many-sized, a foot tall to four feet, more winged or more beaked. They float a closed casket of reeds downstream. 

_ There’s a waterfall at the end of this stretch, _ the Quell tells him softly, without meaning to. _ Waterfalls are something we made together. They begin and end. _

“You’ll have to tell me about it sometime,” Thacker whispers. “Let’s change direction.”

They turn away from the stream, head north instead, and leave the duck-folk to their mourning.

\---

They come upon an unfinished waterfall on the northern edge of the continent. Thacker can’t see the bottom, and the Quell grabs his collar and hauls him back from the edge. 

“It goes down forever,” she says, and her voice shakes a little. “It doesn’t have an ending.”

“Then it needs one, wouldn’t you say?”

“I- I think so.” 

He nods at the thundering waters and the Quell sweeps her hand through the air. Below, a cloud of mist rises up as the water hits the end of the fall. And it feels, for both of them right. Like the lizards needing the rocks to hide in, like the birds needing the trees to perch on, like Barclay turning the faucet off or Maddie putting down the electric sander. 

_ It’s a peace offering, _ she doesn’t say. He doesn’t say. They sit at the top of the waterfall and listen to it roaring.

“When the world was new and all the rivers were connected,” the Quell begins, “and Sylvain had not set the sun in the sky, I already loved her. I loved her. So, when the water was all running off the edges of the world, I put an end to it. And when that end wasn’t enough, I split all the rivers apart. I put rocks in the streams. I taught the beavers about building dams.”

Thacker stays quiet, mist from the waterfall slowly soaking his beard. 

“It was the angriest she’d ever been with me. _ How could I do it, _she said. How could I hold the water back, how could I put endings in the world. But she came around. She made the sun rise and I made it set and she loved me again.” 

Thacker hums, recalls the thickness of the grass under their campsite, the granola vines that keep showing up in their path.

“Before there was _ anything, _ there was Sylvain and there was me and I loved her. I loved her. I still love her, and it’s stupid to say it but _ I think she still loves me, _ too.”

“I think she does too, Slick. I really do. But you know...”

“I know. That doesn’t make us okay right now.”

They sit for a while longer before the Quell stands up, offering him a hand. They turn as one, heading back south again.

“Maybe if we turn west at the tall pile of rocks,” Thacker says, knowing she’ll know which pile, “We’ll find some lizards or something."

“I’m not sure what there is out there,” the Quell muses as they walk.

\---

The Quell is sleeping again when Thacker _ picks up. _Maddie sighs and he can feel how sore her arms are.

“Been carving?” he asks.

_ Yeah, for a new sculpture. The Cryptonomica, you know the place? I’m doing a piece for them. _

“Chicane’s place, huh? Where we all met up a while ago.” Thacker recalls the stream out back, the Quell screaming. Funny how stuff changes.

_ You wouldn’t’ve got along, you and Ned, _Maddie tells him. 

“I only met him maybe once,” he replies. “Maybe we could’ve worked our way around to being friends.”

_ Nah, _ Maddie thinks. _ Nah, you’d both be like sandpaper against each other. _

Thacker smells sawdust.

_ He could be an ass, Ned could. But I miss him. _

“Yeah,” Thacker says to the sunrise, “yeah, I can understand that. But we keep going.”

_ Holding the gate since ‘88, _ Maddie smiles. _ No more gate to hold, though. _

“Isn’t it late, for you? What’s the time there, Madeline? Barclay around?”

_ Oh you’re not gonna believe who Barclay’s around, _Maddie starts, and spends the next hour updating him on Amnesty Lodge, Kepler, and Barclay’s love life.

The now-familiar constellations rotate slowly across the sky and Thacker sighs, at peace.

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from Moss-Gathering, by Theodore Roethke. It's one of my very favorite nature poems. Thinking of Thacker and the Quell took me through the entire 'Nature' section of A Book of Luminous Things, my favorite poetry anthology. If you can listen to the Thacker section of the finale in a park with this book in your bag, I recommend it.  
You can’t have talking mice and expect me to put no redwall references in. be happy i limited myself to one.  
I loved the Amnesty finale SO MUCH, I'm happy to finally finish writing this and share it with y'all.  
Leave a comment and let me know what you think! :)


End file.
